Apache Voices by Sherry Robinson

Author:Sherry Robinson [Robinson, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
ISBN: 9780826318480
Google: LjFIDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2016-04-25T00:43:46+00:00

SEVENTEEN

The Apaches and Comanches

Apaches had little fear of other people until the 1700s, when Comanches began to appear on their Plains hunting grounds. The eastern Apaches—Mescaleros and Lipans—suddenly faced an intruder more ruthless than themselves. Sometimes enemies, sometimes friends, the two groups began a complicated relationship that endured into the nineteenth century and fuels some of their best stories.

History tends to remember the Mescaleros as mountain people, but the tribe’s easternmost bands ranged from the Texas Panhandle south toward Big Bend and into Mexico. They once numbered more than 2,000.

“The Mescaleros were [once] more numerous than the Chiricahuas and we fought many times until only one member of the family or very few of the band was left, for we had enemies on every side—numerous enemies all ready to attack us,” said Bernard Second. “Our history is both romantic and tragic.”1

Their close allies were the Lipan Apaches,2 who lived in the San Saba River valley of Texas and lands to the north; they were a menace to the Spanish colony of San Antonio.3 The Lipans probably numbered five hundred to one thousand for most of the nineteenth century;4 by 1910, just twenty-eight remained.5

“Lipan means ‘no water.’ They just had rainwater in the holes,” said Percy Big Mouth.6

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